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"Major hurricanes, devastating wildfires, a drought and a series of extreme storms ran up the count of billion-dollar U.S. climate and weather disasters."

"As Hurricane Michael quickly gained strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico in October, Tyndall Air Force Base began sending its stealth fighters to safer bases—all but the more than a dozen planes undergoing maintenance. Two days later, the base was being ripped apart by 155 mile-per-hour winds that left it littered with the twisted metal of torn-away rooftops and hangars.

"Mahiuddin, a 35 year-old farmer from Badghis, a mountainous province in western Afghanistan, has been living in a camp outside the city of Herat for months, one of tens of thousands displaced by the worst drought the country has seen in years."

As the Trump administration challenges wetlands preservation policy under the Clean Water Act, an important related practice has come into question. Mitigation banking — the creation or preservation of one wetland to offset the loss of another — has become a billion-dollar industry. But as this week’s TipSheet reports, the legal and regulatory tangle aside, wetlands permitting and mitigation continues, likely near you. Tracking the local story.

The vulnerability of critical U.S. infrastructure to cyberattacks has been a growing worry for years, as electric utilities, drinking water systems, chemical plants, nuclear plants, pipelines and more are the target of a burgeoning cadre of hackers. But for environmental and other journalists focused on the story, another problem has emerged: The secrecy that has long been part of the U.S. cybersecurity policy. In this comprehensive Backgrounder, SEJournal takes a look at the risk, the response and the resources to let reporters go deep on cyber warfare as an energy and environment story.

"Hackers increasingly threaten sites in the U.S. ranging from nuclear power plants to water processing systems, according to a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, adding his voice to warnings from several agencies and officials in recent weeks."

"Energy Secretary Rick Perry told senators Tuesday a new cybersecurity office he plans to create will be sufficient to respond to Russia’s targeting of the U.S. power grid, as Democrats argued that action is not aggressive enough."

"The Trump administration accused Russia on Thursday of engineering a series of cyberattacks that targeted American and European nuclear power plants and water and electric systems, and could have sabotaged or shut power plants off at will."

"Energy Secretary Rick Perry will fly to London this week to discuss a nuclear cooperation agreement with senior officials from Saudi Arabia, which is planning to build two reactors along the Persian Gulf, according to an administration official."